The House On Willow Street (17 page)

“What do you get out of watching that stuff?” she asked, mystified.

“Comfort,” explained Mara. “No matter how bad I feel, it’s better than the people being tracked by the killers. Plus, the detectives always work out whodunnit in the end, which is also comforting. Bad deeds are punished. That’s a nice thought.”

So she was alone, with a box of chocolate finger biscuits and a glass of rosé that night at eight when the doorbell rang.

Shuffling along in her sloppy home sweatpants and slippers, Mara went to the door and peered out through the peephole.

Jack.

He’d come to tell her he loved her, she knew it.

Thank God, thank God. Her giving in her notice had clearly been the tipping point.

But he mustn’t see her like this.

“Hold on,” she yelled, “just on the phone . . .”

At high speed, she raced into her bedroom, ripped off her saggy sweat clothes and pulled on the silky dressing gown that hung on a hook on the door. At the mirror, she dragged a brush through her hair, squirted some grapefruit perfume on her cleavage and rubbed lip balm on her lips. She’d do. Anyway, he wouldn’t be looking at her, he’d be kissing her frenziedly, telling her he loved her, that it had all been a big mistake.

“Coming!” she yelled.

She opened the door and smiled at Jack, who looked so heartbreakingly familiar that she thought she’d cry with the sheer joy of seeing him there.

“Oh, hi, it’s you,” she said.
Play it cool
, she told herself.

“Can I come in, Mara?” he asked.

“Of course.”

She let him in and shut the door gently. She loved the door at that moment.
Loved it
, loved everything and everyone. A smile filling her face, she followed Jack into the living room. With Jack in it, even the room seemed to glow. Certainly, Mara felt herself glow with a happiness she’d forgotten she could feel. He was coming back to her. As she’d known he would, in her heart.

The room was very tidy. One of the plusses of no longer hanging around with Jack meant that she had a lot of time for housework. She’d discovered a previously unrecognized obsessive compulsive disorder in herself. She liked the magazines on the coffee table to lie at an exact right angle to the
edge of the table and she felt very upset when there were crumbs anywhere in the kitchenette. She didn’t need to light candles or dim the lights to make it very attractive: another plus of being manless was that she tried to make the place look as pretty as possible to cheer herself up, so the candles were already lit. The big minus was the box of chocolate fingers on the coffee table, with at least three-quarters of them already devoured. But Jack had loved her appetite. Besides, he probably wouldn’t notice.

“Would you like a glass of wine?” she asked. Somehow she managed to turn off the TV, paused halfway through
Criminal Minds.
Where was the remote for Cici’s music system? Romantic music was what she needed.

“No, I don’t want any wine, thanks,” he said, and sat heavily on the single armchair.

Mara had thought he might sit on the couch, and she’d sink on to it beside him. Still. She smiled, picked up her wineglass and took a sip, while scanning around for the music remote. There it was. She scrolled through the remote to find something slow and romantic, Cici’s movie love themes. Perfect.

Then Mara sat down on the couch, curled her feet elegantly up around her and draped the silky dressing gown to what she hoped was its best effect. How many times had they curled up on this very couch, kissing languorously?

“How have you been?” she asked softly.

This was bound to be hard for him. She wanted to make it easier.

He said nothing, simply stared at her, which meant that Mara could stare right back and drink him in. His blond hair was ruffled up on one side, she noticed lovingly. He must have come straight from work; he was wearing a suit, the gray Italian one, the tie pulled askew. His face looked thinner
and the blue eyes watched her carefully. She loved this man, Mara thought. Like nobody had ever loved before.

Coolness flew out the window.

“I’ve missed you so much, Jack,” she said quickly. “I thought I’d die without you. It’s a half-life, you see, without you.”

She got up and sat on the edge of his armchair, ready to sink into his arms when he said it.
I love you, Mara. It’s all been a terrible mistake.

She reached out to touch his face but he grabbed her wrist suddenly, hurting her.

“No,” he said roughly.

He leaped out of the chair in his haste to get away and Mara stumbled back toward the couch.

With one hand, he pulled at his hair. He wasn’t looking at her now, but down, he was looking down at the floor.

“I didn’t come here for this, Mara,” he said.

Then he looked up at her face and Mara saw what she hadn’t allowed herself to see before: embarrassment.

“I’m really sorry,” he began again, still facing her. “This isn’t easy for me, but I have to do it because it’s my fault. You leaving could be seen legally as constructive dismissal. You know: you didn’t want to go, but the pain of seeing me with Tawhnee made you give in your notice. Six months down the road, you might decide to sue Kearney Property Partners, and I can’t let that happen. The business is in enough trouble as it is. We’d fold if we had an unfair dismissal court case.”

From inside the jacket pocket of the lovely Italian suit, he took some papers.

Unfolding them carefully, deliberately not meeting her eyes, Jack put the papers on the table.

“You don’t have to sign now. You can get your lawyer to look them over—”

“I don’t have a lawyer,” whispered Mara as it all became clear to her.

He hadn’t come to tell her he loved her: he’d come to tie up all the loose ends so his business would be protected.

And she’d thrown herself at him, ignoring reality, convincing herself that he still loved her.

She pulled the silky robe tighter around her. It wasn’t an item of clothing designed to cover—it was made for revealing, but Mara no longer wanted to reveal herself to him. She tied the sash so tightly that it bit into her.

“You should go,” she said, her voice shaking.

“Look, Mara, I never meant for it to end up like this,” he began.

“GO!”

Her raised voice startled both of them.

It seemed to do the trick. Jack gave her his helpless look, an expression she recognized from times when he hadn’t managed to sell a property. She wished she hated him. It would be easier.

But for the moment, she only hated herself.

“You’ll look at the papers?” he asked.

“I might,” she said evenly. “Now, go.”

Mara realized what a sensible plan it was for people not to be permitted to carry handguns, because if she had one, she would absolutely have shot Jack at that moment. She wasn’t sure
where
she would have shot him, but it would have been somewhere very, very painful.

She didn’t watch him leave, although she felt the blast of cold air when he opened the front door. It was a bitterly cold evening and to maximize sea views in their elderly apartment block, each front door opened on to a balcony that got the full blast of wind from the Atlantic. Suddenly, Mara hated the apartment because every part of it held memories of Jack.

When he was gone, she finished off her glass of wine and began to eat the rest of the chocolate fingers in the pack.
Aliens
had gone back to the DVD rental shop, but somewhere she had a copy of
Terminator
2
where Linda Hamilton got really muscley and beat the heck out of lots of people. That was exactly what she needed right now.

D
anae’s routine on a Saturday morning rarely varied. She’d collect her shopping basket and walk down Willow Street into the town, stopping at various places to buy food for the weekend and occasionally pass the time with some of the other shopkeepers. Nothing too personal, just talk about the weather, a subject which enthralled everyone.

“Will it rain, do you think?”

“The forecast said gales, but you can’t trust what they say. Always wrong. My husband’s cousin has a pig that always predicts the weather—goes into his pen if it’s going to rain, stays out if it’s fine, and if frost is due, he runs to the back door and tries to get in.”

There was always something to be discussed when it came to weather and it made the perfect subject for someone like Danae: you could talk all day about it and never reveal a thing about yourself.

One of her favorite stops was the new wool shop, where she’d go in and touch the beautiful silky skeins of wool and wonder what she’d make next. She loved knitting, loved the meditative quality of hearing the needles clicking together,
feeling the wool slide through her fingers in the age-old tradition.

Avalon’s wool shop, Rudi & Madison, was on a cobbled lane off the square and it was painted a pretty lavender color that drew the eye. The owner, Sandra, who was gentle and kind, had named the shop after her two dogs. Anyone who loved dogs that much was a good person in Danae’s eyes. Danae felt she could be friends with Sandra, but she was anxious about getting close and saying too much. She wasn’t good with people: it was safer to stand back, wasn’t it?

“Morning, Danae,” said Sandra, as the shop bell tinkled over the door. “How are you, pet? We’ve got some new silvery speckled pure wool, lovely for Christmas cardigans or things like that, and gifts, too—you could make beautiful scarves. Or imagine a lovely Aran sweater with sparkles in it; wouldn’t that be a great gift for a friend?”

“Yes,” said Danae, smiling. It was a genuine smile, even though there were few people in the world she called friend, and what Christmas presents she gave went to her family, who were probably quite sick of knitted things. Nevertheless, she dutifully went over and looked at the beautiful wool. It was indeed a lovely shade of pewter gray with little silver flecks running through it.

It would suit Mara; she could knit a lovely, lacy scarf for her, a small present that would be sitting on her bed when she arrived. She was happy that Mara was coming, but now that her arrival was imminent, Danae was feeling a little anxious. She wasn’t used to living with anyone for any length of time and Mara hadn’t said how long she’d stay. Probably not for long, Danae decided. She’d be off looking for work somewhere—Dublin, London or Australia: that’s where the young people were going. No need to worry, really.

A scarf would be a nice gift for her. Mara adored clothes.
The girl was a veritable magpie when it came to all that vintage stuff. Things Danae used to call secondhand, back in the day. She had bought plenty of secondhand clothes herself over the years. There had been a time when all her clothes came from the Lifeboat Shop around the corner from her and Antonio’s flat, ekeing out the few pennies to keep herself dressed so that nobody would know she had so little money in her purse.

“Isn’t it lovely?” said Sandra again, reaching out and touching Danae, as if she could sense her pain.

Danae jumped. She wasn’t used to being touched. Quickly, she pulled herself out of the past.

“Gosh, yes,” she said. “I think I’ll make a scarf, a couple of scarves. My sister-in-law, Elsie, might like one too. Although maybe in a different color. Do you have any soft lilac shades?”

As she watched Sandra pack the wool into a bag, Danae thought how small her Christmas list was: something for her brother, Morris, a gift for Elsie, something for Stephen, their son, and for Mara, and then a gift for Belle. That was it: that was her circle of friends and family. Without them, she’d have nobody. Morris and Elsie were so lovely to her, always asking her to stay with them in their pretty house in Dublin for Christmas, but Danae had never gone. She had her hens and Lady to take care of, she explained, making sure to let them know she was grateful for the invitation and that she considered it an honor to be asked. Truthfully, she’d have loved to spend Christmas with them, but she always found it such a sad time of year and she didn’t want to inflict her sadness on them.

Christmas was a time of extremes, she felt. If you were happy in your life, the world reflected that back to you and you felt only happiness and joy in the festive season. If your
life was lonely and sad, then you felt it tenfold, because all around you were smiling people, while you stood there in your sadness, not a part of it all, feeling like the loneliest person on the planet.

Belle usually asked her to the hotel for Christmas dinner, but Danae had gone a couple of times and found it an uncomfortable experience: she was too used to remaining on the outside of things to get into the madcap camaraderie of the hotel’s holiday dinner. There were silly hats, crackers, charades, and at least one person commandeering the microphone to sing what would turn out to be a mournful song about the old days. Then Danae would feel as though she was going to cry, and she’d leave, wishing she’d stayed home in front of the fire with Lady.

“There we are, all packed up,” said Sandra cheerfully. “I hope we’ll see you for the turning on of the Christmas lights the first Wednesday in December.”